What do you think?
Rate this book
The Book of Pook
The 'Game' or Pick-up artist (PUA) movement has been growing in recent years. Basically, if you haven't come across it, its a collection of psychological techniques for pressing women's buttons in order to get them to be attracted to you.
A couple of years ago there was a man who posted on a PUA forum called So Suave and had his own blog called Pook's Mill. His basic message was that the PUA techniques were too simple, and focused on external manipulations, and focusing on others rather than focusing on yourself and your own masculinity.
Sadly Pook disappeared from the scene, but someone managed to collect Pook's posts from So Suave into an ebook (PDF) that is freely downloadable.
A couple of years ago there was a man who posted on a PUA forum called So Suave and had his own blog called Pook's Mill. His basic message was that the PUA techniques were too simple, and focused on external manipulations, and focusing on others rather than focusing on yourself and your own masculinity.
Sadly Pook disappeared from the scene, but someone managed to collect Pook's posts from So Suave into an ebook (PDF) that is freely downloadable.
265 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2008
270 people are currently reading
2479 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 91 reviews
December 29, 2011
This is clearly the best book I have ever read.
How would I describe this book? This compilation of forum posts came from a PUA forum, so yes, I suppose it leans in towards PUA, and mostly, inner game material. But this is so much more than that!
The Book of Pook teaches you to be a man and to not give in to the power that women yield over spineless guys. More effectively, the book wants you to respect yourself and to love yourself. If you don't love yourself, how can you expect anyone else to love you? asks the book. It tries to differentiate between sexuality and the erotic using flowery Shakespearean language, which, if anything, emphasizes his points even more.
The book isn't the usual "be confident" inner-game stuff that I have already read. There isn't a twelve step process in Pook's world that will teach you to "get the girl". In Pook's world, there is only one process - and that is yourself. You need to change yourself, and changing yourself is good, he argues, for the only constant in life is death.
It's impossible to review the book in 3-400 words. Simply because it wasn't meant to be a book.
All I can say is, I am going to print it out and bind it like a Bible and when I am down and out of strength, and I feel like giving up, I am going to come back to this book, for it gave me more strength than any religious book ever gave me.
How would I describe this book? This compilation of forum posts came from a PUA forum, so yes, I suppose it leans in towards PUA, and mostly, inner game material. But this is so much more than that!
The Book of Pook teaches you to be a man and to not give in to the power that women yield over spineless guys. More effectively, the book wants you to respect yourself and to love yourself. If you don't love yourself, how can you expect anyone else to love you? asks the book. It tries to differentiate between sexuality and the erotic using flowery Shakespearean language, which, if anything, emphasizes his points even more.
The book isn't the usual "be confident" inner-game stuff that I have already read. There isn't a twelve step process in Pook's world that will teach you to "get the girl". In Pook's world, there is only one process - and that is yourself. You need to change yourself, and changing yourself is good, he argues, for the only constant in life is death.
It's impossible to review the book in 3-400 words. Simply because it wasn't meant to be a book.
All I can say is, I am going to print it out and bind it like a Bible and when I am down and out of strength, and I feel like giving up, I am going to come back to this book, for it gave me more strength than any religious book ever gave me.
February 8, 2013
A book about how to be a man in a feminist world.
June 16, 2017
This was probably one of the most frustrating books I've ever read. Not bad though, I can deal with bad books. I just put them away and that's it.
But there are some really solid pieces of advice in this book, which makes it all the more infuriating that the majority of it is such utter bobbins. It's like having do scuba dive in a septic tank for bars of gold...
The constant misogyny is probably the least of the book's issues. It's a collection of posts from a PUA-forum, so you know what you're in for and considering its origin, the book isn't even that misogynist, it's not really hateful. It's mostly just condescending, portraying all women as child-minded simpletons, all functioning the same way, merely doing girl-talk with their girlfriends while the men go out to hunt food and build society.
Far more irritating is the blatant inconsistency. Okay, it's a collection of only semi-related forum posts and they were written over several years, during which the author underwent some life changes, which he admits himself. But even single posts themselves aren't always consistent. The author is an incredibly talented and creative writer with a vocabulary far, far above average and he'll often quote great philosophers, thinkers and writers. He's clearly a very well-read person who admires the great intellectuals of the past. Yet he constantly berates and condemns intellectualism and people who prefer mentally stimulation conversations over what he calls "action dates". This seems contradicting at best, hypocritical at worst...
I did mention that it wasn't all bad though. Some advice is solid, mostly as long as it isn't related to women and dating. His advice on self-development, living a life worth living, not relying on outside sources for your feeling of worth and so on are valuable but everything around them is just so...wrong.
If you're a strong character who has a solid respect for women as equal human beings, maybe give this a look. But if you're easily influenced by big words and lofty promises, this book could very easily lead you down a dangerous path that ends up in the women-hating world of Men's Rights and Red Pill.
But there are some really solid pieces of advice in this book, which makes it all the more infuriating that the majority of it is such utter bobbins. It's like having do scuba dive in a septic tank for bars of gold...
The constant misogyny is probably the least of the book's issues. It's a collection of posts from a PUA-forum, so you know what you're in for and considering its origin, the book isn't even that misogynist, it's not really hateful. It's mostly just condescending, portraying all women as child-minded simpletons, all functioning the same way, merely doing girl-talk with their girlfriends while the men go out to hunt food and build society.
Far more irritating is the blatant inconsistency. Okay, it's a collection of only semi-related forum posts and they were written over several years, during which the author underwent some life changes, which he admits himself. But even single posts themselves aren't always consistent. The author is an incredibly talented and creative writer with a vocabulary far, far above average and he'll often quote great philosophers, thinkers and writers. He's clearly a very well-read person who admires the great intellectuals of the past. Yet he constantly berates and condemns intellectualism and people who prefer mentally stimulation conversations over what he calls "action dates". This seems contradicting at best, hypocritical at worst...
I did mention that it wasn't all bad though. Some advice is solid, mostly as long as it isn't related to women and dating. His advice on self-development, living a life worth living, not relying on outside sources for your feeling of worth and so on are valuable but everything around them is just so...wrong.
If you're a strong character who has a solid respect for women as equal human beings, maybe give this a look. But if you're easily influenced by big words and lofty promises, this book could very easily lead you down a dangerous path that ends up in the women-hating world of Men's Rights and Red Pill.
September 17, 2013
This book as huge downside! I want to read more, I want to talk to the author - invite him to my house an discuss this subjects.
I had huge moments of awareness and realizations that make a lot of sense. Guys are being feminine and passive, being reactive rather than active.
Shiittt, this book is awesome. The way that Pook writes is funny and very easy to understand. We can see he has read a lot and thinks regularly about this stuff.
He should do a "real" book.
I can say that he changed my life for good. This was almost like talking to god. Shit...
Just read 5 pages and you will get your mind blown! I'm in awe!
I had huge moments of awareness and realizations that make a lot of sense. Guys are being feminine and passive, being reactive rather than active.
Shiittt, this book is awesome. The way that Pook writes is funny and very easy to understand. We can see he has read a lot and thinks regularly about this stuff.
He should do a "real" book.
I can say that he changed my life for good. This was almost like talking to god. Shit...
Just read 5 pages and you will get your mind blown! I'm in awe!
December 3, 2021
Don't categorize it as PUA, red pill, or a pickup guide. Yeah it teaches you what women are really thinking and is a survival guide for this feminism rampant society, but more importantly it teaches you to value yourself. Deeper than picking up girls, the techniques and philosophies here will grow you into a better person.
August 22, 2016
A self-improvement book first and foremost. Treat it as such. Don't get too bogged down with his views, make your own inferences. Gets better in latter half, especially the last few pages dealing with success.
Gold:
How do I judge a woman's character? I see how she treats people who can do nothing for her.
Your life depends on the choices you make now in your youth. What you do today echoes a lifetime.
Passion - never lose it, for that would be the death of your soul.
Consistency is the most important thing to success... in anything
Honor your dream and have patience. You are the catch.
OOH LA LA
Gold:
How do I judge a woman's character? I see how she treats people who can do nothing for her.
Your life depends on the choices you make now in your youth. What you do today echoes a lifetime.
Passion - never lose it, for that would be the death of your soul.
Consistency is the most important thing to success... in anything
Honor your dream and have patience. You are the catch.
OOH LA LA
September 13, 2015
Improve yourself, and women will follow.
The high standards you apply to your desires must be applied to yourself.
Main Ideas
- Only go for many women or none at all (monk mode)
- Improve yourself until you do not need women to be happy
- Embrace being a sexualized male
- Nice Guy vs. Jerk
- Nice guy depends on good reactions from women
- Jerk depends on getting laid from women
- Attractive man: Doesn’t give a shit what women think
The high standards you apply to your desires must be applied to yourself.
Main Ideas
- Only go for many women or none at all (monk mode)
- Improve yourself until you do not need women to be happy
- Embrace being a sexualized male
- Nice Guy vs. Jerk
- Nice guy depends on good reactions from women
- Jerk depends on getting laid from women
- Attractive man: Doesn’t give a shit what women think
June 4, 2015
It has sound advice on many different areas of life, all of them usually related to sexuality.
Since the first time I met this “community” I could never manage to force myself to enter in a forum about seduction, nothing against guys there, but I don’t think it would be great for my personal evolution to be in one.
Contradicting my prejudice it was easy to see that the author of those posts was indeed successful with women. In this seduction community, as in all other areas of life, immediate expectations created by immediate needs tend to suffocate real growth and transformation. People tend to put their focus more and more on external things and never in internal ones, and then they attach their ego to the path they have taken and become this strange illusion of themselves, defending the lie to them and others.
The author is not one of those; he is real, not defending anything, just being.
In relation to seduction, tricks, methods, lines, excuses are all lanes driving away from the real challenge, therefore away from the real growth.
I don’t know if I agree with the view of the author on women, in a general line goes against the path I’ve been following. Since I started to be surrounded by women, more and more experiences reinforced to me that the “war of the sexes” is just an eggshell of socially conditioned rhetoric/behavior created as a consequence of political, cultural and historical misjudgments. In fact the more you peel that away from your connection with a woman, more of that woman you will have and eventually more women you will also have. It is, for me, surrendering to your nature and leading women to the same surrendering.
The author, in some of those posts, defended points that I couldn’t help but to interpret as feeding more into that paradigm of war of the genders, which creates the disconnection that in my opinion is the biggest cause of failure for man and woman, in this particular field of life.
But then again, that is just my position based on the road that I carved/ am carving with my own foot. Other roads are obviously different, not necessarily better or worse.
It was easy to recognize myself and some of my own lessons on the pages of this book, it was entertaining to see his growth with the passing of the years.
This book has great insights and I would recommend it to any emasculated creature (nice guys, wimp guys) and to boys (method seducers, routine addicted dudes), and to those select few that realized that paradise is now.
This book taught me: For me personally, the best insights I take from the book are the ones about sexuality and expression of sexuality for men and women, I had never seen them under the light the author used here, I believe it will help me improve as a man.
Best quote in the book: “YOU are the GREAT CATCH” , “Perfect is boring.”
“Dreams are more powerful than facts. Imagination is stronger than knowledge, the myth more powerful than history, and passion will always go further than experience. The final word to the book of science is that the world can be made to whatever we want, that the real world is not outside you but within, which gives us all the power to begin the world over again.”
Since the first time I met this “community” I could never manage to force myself to enter in a forum about seduction, nothing against guys there, but I don’t think it would be great for my personal evolution to be in one.
Contradicting my prejudice it was easy to see that the author of those posts was indeed successful with women. In this seduction community, as in all other areas of life, immediate expectations created by immediate needs tend to suffocate real growth and transformation. People tend to put their focus more and more on external things and never in internal ones, and then they attach their ego to the path they have taken and become this strange illusion of themselves, defending the lie to them and others.
The author is not one of those; he is real, not defending anything, just being.
In relation to seduction, tricks, methods, lines, excuses are all lanes driving away from the real challenge, therefore away from the real growth.
I don’t know if I agree with the view of the author on women, in a general line goes against the path I’ve been following. Since I started to be surrounded by women, more and more experiences reinforced to me that the “war of the sexes” is just an eggshell of socially conditioned rhetoric/behavior created as a consequence of political, cultural and historical misjudgments. In fact the more you peel that away from your connection with a woman, more of that woman you will have and eventually more women you will also have. It is, for me, surrendering to your nature and leading women to the same surrendering.
The author, in some of those posts, defended points that I couldn’t help but to interpret as feeding more into that paradigm of war of the genders, which creates the disconnection that in my opinion is the biggest cause of failure for man and woman, in this particular field of life.
But then again, that is just my position based on the road that I carved/ am carving with my own foot. Other roads are obviously different, not necessarily better or worse.
It was easy to recognize myself and some of my own lessons on the pages of this book, it was entertaining to see his growth with the passing of the years.
This book has great insights and I would recommend it to any emasculated creature (nice guys, wimp guys) and to boys (method seducers, routine addicted dudes), and to those select few that realized that paradise is now.
This book taught me: For me personally, the best insights I take from the book are the ones about sexuality and expression of sexuality for men and women, I had never seen them under the light the author used here, I believe it will help me improve as a man.
Best quote in the book: “YOU are the GREAT CATCH” , “Perfect is boring.”
“Dreams are more powerful than facts. Imagination is stronger than knowledge, the myth more powerful than history, and passion will always go further than experience. The final word to the book of science is that the world can be made to whatever we want, that the real world is not outside you but within, which gives us all the power to begin the world over again.”
October 22, 2017
Very opinionated. However, there is a lot of introspection and truth to most of what he is saying. He essentially says that it's all backwards. We need to focus on being ourselves and CONSTANTLY be improving that self. Not trying to be someone else.
Very good at parables and telling stories. Storytelling is similar to Arabian Nights.
Very good at parables and telling stories. Storytelling is similar to Arabian Nights.
June 10, 2015
It's kinda hard to get anything useful from this book, it is very radical and challenging to the mainstream belief, good for motivation but it is very easy for an immature reader to read this and turn into a misogynistic and resentful creep.
December 5, 2023
2023 reads, #97. I'm getting geared up to finally write out the post-apocalyptic Proud Boys BDSM "dubious consent" erotic romance novel I've had outlined for the last six months (the project being an attempt to advertise my skills as a freelance romance editor); and to get myself more into the mindset of the alt-right guys who run the "New Sparta" post-apocalyptic settlement where my story takes place, I've started tearing through a bunch of books I once found grouped together on the Pirate Bay under the title "The Red Pill Collection." This particular title is a compilation of forum posts by the eponymous Pook at the popular incel website SoSuave.net, put together by another forum member by the pen-name of Gubby, and I have to admit that it's a kind of perfect Platonian example of both everything I'm fascinated by in the alt-right men's movement and everything that drives me crazy.
Just to begin with, although this book talks a lot about "dating" and "relationships" and what an incel can do to have these in their life, the way these events are described in the book are way off from the societal standard, with not one word spent on topics like emotional intimacy or personal vulnerability, but rather the entirety of a "relationship" being defined as "when a penis goes in and out of a vagina long enough and fast enough to produce an orgasm," at which point that "relationship" is over and it's time to go find another "relationship." This invariably then leads (like it always does in incel books) to the defining of the entire female gender not as individual humans each with their own individual personalities, quirks, likes and dislikes, but rather just an endless sea of interchangeable vaginas with legs, which you apply the same ol' shtick to over and over without ever bothering to get to know them as actual human beings, since things like personalities and interests aren't required for the incel definition of a "happy relationship."
Especially infuriating in these books is the way they do these incredibly strict and niche definitions of terms, then pretend that this is the global standard that applies in every situation with every person. Here, for example, Monsieur Pook very specifically defines a "very attractive woman" (the woman you're ultimately working up to under an incel dating system, because by the point that they finally take an interest in you, you will have truly earned that vagina with legs) exclusively as someone with long hair and big boobs, who wears a lot of makeup and regularly squeezes herself into tight, trashy dresses. For a bunch of guys complaining about how they can never have sex, they sure are voluntarily eliminating a lot of women who exist from consideration! I can state all this with some authority, because as a teen in the '80s, I suffered from a lot of the problems incels do too (inconsolably horny, awkward around women, finding myself in the "friend zone" a lot), but it was only decades later with a lot of hindsight that I realized that I could've been fucking hot teen girls left and right when I'd been in high school, that all the signs of their interest were clearly there, but that I eliminated the very idea of dating them from my head because they were too much this or not enough that. Once I got into my twenties and actually did start dating these women, they turned out to be super-interesting and way more sexually confident than some bleached-out Kardashian who's poured herself into some Spanx while hanging out at a club on the Jersey Shore, and it's maddening to hear these dudes complain about how they never have sex when the only women they'll even consider are airbrushed AI bots in lad magazines.
What's perhaps most infuriating of all, though, is the way these books get just a little bit of a situation right, just enough that the writing sounds serious and worth paying attention to, which is why these books keep selling and people just keep making more of them; but then they'll completely draw the wrong conclusion from this limited amount of true information, or take situations that's happened to them in particular as an aggressively obnoxious alt-right incel and state that this is the reaction that all creatures with a penis will forever always get from all creatures with vaginas. Like, Pook talks here about a common piece of wisdom in these incel books, that women generally dislike men who come across as weak, spineless, indecisive and easy to persuade; and that's a true statement about the world, in my opinion. But that has nothing to do with women's "mating rituals" or whatever these incel authors are attributing it to, but rather something that's simply true of the entire human race whenever they're hanging out with any other member of the human race, that all of us generally prefer to spend time with someone confident, courageous, with specific opinions and who can equally participate in a conversation about "where should we have dinner tonight?" Instead, Pook and these other incel writers state that this is proof that women want forceful, dominant, trick-playing "alpha males" to rule over them in a relationship with an iron fist like the animals they are, not bothering to acknowledge that you don't have to automatically go from being a doormat to being an asshole, that there are other shades of behavior in between those extremes. Or for another example, note here when Pook claims that "women simply aren't interested in your opinions," using this to claim that the proper response is to simply buy them pretty things and make sure to fuck them regularly, and just force your Star Wars and anime on them if they're not naturally interested. But Pook, bro, I gotta tell you, I've had dozens of female romantic partners over the decades who were interested in my opinions, just that my opinions weren't the crazy fucking woman-hating rantings of a fedora-wearing meninist, so no goddamn wonder you're finding that the women around you in your life aren't interested in your fucking opinions.
This is the tragedy of the alt-right movement, that they're getting something like 25 percent of it right, which is just enough to feel righteous and motivated, but then just so utterly fucking up the other 75 percent that everything they touch turns into cartoonishly terrible shit just a moment later. However, I can certainly state that a book like this will absolutely help get you into the mindset of someone who believes this stuff, if you're interested in writing a novel where they're the villain-heroes in a world gone mad. Read it for this reason and this reason only.
Just to begin with, although this book talks a lot about "dating" and "relationships" and what an incel can do to have these in their life, the way these events are described in the book are way off from the societal standard, with not one word spent on topics like emotional intimacy or personal vulnerability, but rather the entirety of a "relationship" being defined as "when a penis goes in and out of a vagina long enough and fast enough to produce an orgasm," at which point that "relationship" is over and it's time to go find another "relationship." This invariably then leads (like it always does in incel books) to the defining of the entire female gender not as individual humans each with their own individual personalities, quirks, likes and dislikes, but rather just an endless sea of interchangeable vaginas with legs, which you apply the same ol' shtick to over and over without ever bothering to get to know them as actual human beings, since things like personalities and interests aren't required for the incel definition of a "happy relationship."
Especially infuriating in these books is the way they do these incredibly strict and niche definitions of terms, then pretend that this is the global standard that applies in every situation with every person. Here, for example, Monsieur Pook very specifically defines a "very attractive woman" (the woman you're ultimately working up to under an incel dating system, because by the point that they finally take an interest in you, you will have truly earned that vagina with legs) exclusively as someone with long hair and big boobs, who wears a lot of makeup and regularly squeezes herself into tight, trashy dresses. For a bunch of guys complaining about how they can never have sex, they sure are voluntarily eliminating a lot of women who exist from consideration! I can state all this with some authority, because as a teen in the '80s, I suffered from a lot of the problems incels do too (inconsolably horny, awkward around women, finding myself in the "friend zone" a lot), but it was only decades later with a lot of hindsight that I realized that I could've been fucking hot teen girls left and right when I'd been in high school, that all the signs of their interest were clearly there, but that I eliminated the very idea of dating them from my head because they were too much this or not enough that. Once I got into my twenties and actually did start dating these women, they turned out to be super-interesting and way more sexually confident than some bleached-out Kardashian who's poured herself into some Spanx while hanging out at a club on the Jersey Shore, and it's maddening to hear these dudes complain about how they never have sex when the only women they'll even consider are airbrushed AI bots in lad magazines.
What's perhaps most infuriating of all, though, is the way these books get just a little bit of a situation right, just enough that the writing sounds serious and worth paying attention to, which is why these books keep selling and people just keep making more of them; but then they'll completely draw the wrong conclusion from this limited amount of true information, or take situations that's happened to them in particular as an aggressively obnoxious alt-right incel and state that this is the reaction that all creatures with a penis will forever always get from all creatures with vaginas. Like, Pook talks here about a common piece of wisdom in these incel books, that women generally dislike men who come across as weak, spineless, indecisive and easy to persuade; and that's a true statement about the world, in my opinion. But that has nothing to do with women's "mating rituals" or whatever these incel authors are attributing it to, but rather something that's simply true of the entire human race whenever they're hanging out with any other member of the human race, that all of us generally prefer to spend time with someone confident, courageous, with specific opinions and who can equally participate in a conversation about "where should we have dinner tonight?" Instead, Pook and these other incel writers state that this is proof that women want forceful, dominant, trick-playing "alpha males" to rule over them in a relationship with an iron fist like the animals they are, not bothering to acknowledge that you don't have to automatically go from being a doormat to being an asshole, that there are other shades of behavior in between those extremes. Or for another example, note here when Pook claims that "women simply aren't interested in your opinions," using this to claim that the proper response is to simply buy them pretty things and make sure to fuck them regularly, and just force your Star Wars and anime on them if they're not naturally interested. But Pook, bro, I gotta tell you, I've had dozens of female romantic partners over the decades who were interested in my opinions, just that my opinions weren't the crazy fucking woman-hating rantings of a fedora-wearing meninist, so no goddamn wonder you're finding that the women around you in your life aren't interested in your fucking opinions.
This is the tragedy of the alt-right movement, that they're getting something like 25 percent of it right, which is just enough to feel righteous and motivated, but then just so utterly fucking up the other 75 percent that everything they touch turns into cartoonishly terrible shit just a moment later. However, I can certainly state that a book like this will absolutely help get you into the mindset of someone who believes this stuff, if you're interested in writing a novel where they're the villain-heroes in a world gone mad. Read it for this reason and this reason only.
December 20, 2017
Fantastic book that focuses on improving your core self rather than remembering tactics.
Think of Pook to Sosuave as Satoshi Nakamoto is to Bitcoin. The long lost founder with the core concepts.
Some great notes here: http://kevevans.com/pook-2/
Think of Pook to Sosuave as Satoshi Nakamoto is to Bitcoin. The long lost founder with the core concepts.
Some great notes here: http://kevevans.com/pook-2/
December 31, 2015
Didn't agree with a lot of it but very much agreed with the self-development, focusing on your life and mission, and taking responsibility for your own outcome parts of the book. There's a wealth of knowledge but you have to manually filter out the offensive material and auto replace "women" with "people". The book focuses on how women act but I feel like that's just how all people who don't achieve great success act.
December 31, 2014
Disregard women, acquire aesthetics, acquire currency, acquire bros, acquire puppies.
June 29, 2015
5 stars for zeal and life, 1 star for misogynistic bullshit, of which there's a shocking amount.
April 8, 2020
Great redpill book. Love the rant at the end.
June 27, 2020
Legendary Book!
August 30, 2021
Unbelievably in depth knowledge for men. Wisdom to change your life and help understand women. Don juandom awaits
October 3, 2025
This is a collection of forum posts written over a couple of years from a famous Sosuave forum user in the early 2000s. By that time, pick-up was relatively new in message boards and the predominant methods were MM (Mystery Method) and SS (Speed Seduction), and Pook's posts represented a massive step forward toward "Natural Game," emphasizing that nature had rigged the game for us to be naturally seductive. What we needed to do, in a somewhat Rousseauian way, was to embrace our pristine and pure inner-natural child, who's confident, playful and charming, as well as going back in time culturally and evolutionarily, to get back in touch with core animal carnal masculinity, and let the testosterone and estrogen do its ancient horny magic. Thus the job of the seducer is simply to revert, to "unlearn" the Nice Guy traits and the bad socializing, rather than "learning" seduction methods and tactics.
It is difficult to create a coherent book review of it since the topics have a large range and the only red thread across the posts is the emphasis on naturalness. The book is a fun read, really. What I really like is this engaging and life-like, and quite original writing style of sudden summoning and disappearance of various women, nice guys and historical figures to make his point. At one point he's trying to make his point and a "Mr. Nice Guy" is constantly trying to interrupt him. Very unique for a manosphere forum writer. And while it shouldn't be taken very seriously, as Pook is a bit wild, dramatic and uncareful, it should be digested as a whole to get an overall feel for a worldview, like poetry, not necessarily that every single point he's making is factually correct. Having said that, if someone specifically asks me about "Natural Game," I will recommend reading this, as well as RSD Tyler's Blueprint DVDs, as they lay out the concept perfectly.
What I like about Pook is how he is inspiring to become both physically jacked, but also to expand one's mind reading classical books. His talent and wide-reading of the classics is evident by his lively and cultured writing style, which is humorously combined with crude modern manospheric advice for men. Readers are inspired not only to hit the gym in his iconic transition of relating increasing bodyweight from 120 to 200 pounds to increasingly more access to beautiful women, but also to study Shakespeare. To be jacked, witty, cultured, and base attracting women on letting nature do its work, piercing women with lust in one's eye—that's something I definitely can stand behind. While I disagree with some old-school manosphere ideas, I can completely stand behind his core approach: focus on energy, testosterone, be a bad boy with a heart, an intellectual troublemaker, dangerous but sweet underneath, a little unpredictable and paradoxical.
Pook's overall view of sex is surprisingly conservative and says that it's put on a pedestal culturally, that our culture has desexualized men and women's roles in society, so what has happened is sexuality has become pushed into the bedroom, and the ultimate test of manhood is there, not in real life. This is an important point—society is becoming more androgynous (non-sexual), the roles of men and women are getting washed out, creating a culture of BDSM and too much focus on bedroom skills. As the definition of what makes a man in society in comparison to a woman blurs, what makes you a "man" these days is how many women you've laid, how much of a sex god you are with your techniques, etc. Pook argues against this and wants to separate "sexuality" from mere "sex." Ideally, sexuality should permeate our society healthily, but it's not, so it has become eroticized.
Like I mentioned earlier, Pook has a Rousseauian view of childhood. He says that we are naturally good with women. As children we were fearless, fun, we would talk to random girls in the sandbox no problem, and we were having fun throwing dirt at them. He says even the definition of charm is treating women as if they are little girls. If we could tap into this energy, girls would find us irresistible. However, society has corrupted us into Nice Guys, etc.
Though a caveat might be that the "letting go" is only useful at the point when you've grasped it. I think the ideal is not to return to a childlike state, but to transcend the intermediary state of being stuffed with ideas, rules and philosophies. It always invokes my curiosity when someone says, "Yeah I left that speed seduction, mystery method, Neil Strauss thing behind me and focus on being myself," and they mysteriously just so happen to meet beautiful women naturally. There's something about going through a tough period of becoming conscious of something, then letting go, that works. It is understandable that teachers realize they had to let go of their philosophy to transcend, and thus advise apprentices to just skip the conscious philosophy stage altogether. Pook did mention this:
| These guides and rules were a crutch for my lack of confidence. They do, however, work but are overall limited. The rules and guides are the training wheels, the helper out of the nest.
However, with the lack of emphasis and recommendation of training wheels, one has to assume that the reader is already at a certain phase.
In advocating against "wanting" a relationship, in a sort of bad-boy childlike fashion, relating relationships as cages, Pook writes:
| Women want the birds that are FREE, WILD and BEAUTIFUL. They want A GOOD CATCH. Good catches do not fly into cages. Only wounded or needy birds need cages.
The idea here rings true to my ears. More often than not, we just "end up" in a relationship exactly at the point when we don't want it, or have just forgotten all about it. At the precise moment you think, "Geesh, I actually don't want a relationship now," that's when the gods of love are conspiring against you.
But I think he takes it too far when he says, The guy marries because he is tired... so tired. He cannot stand being single and cannot endure the trials of life. Obviously, this isn't the case. Guys don't just give up on life when they get married; on the contrary, many are better able to concentrate their energies that way.
He also makes it crystal clear that it is the woman's role to want relationships, and men want sex. In the ethics of the sexual dynamics, men are completely free of any charge if they have sex with a woman but leave her. Pook writes:
| The girl sleeps with the jerk and he leaves her. We as guys think the abuse is the jerk sleeping with the girl merely to 'use' her (and motherly harpies try to feminize us into not doing 'this'). Rather, the 'abuse' is that the girl realizes she could not keep the guy. She was 'not woman enough.'
In other words, the bad feelings a woman feels when she's pumped and dumped are not because she's been morally wronged, but because she realizes her lack of feminine allure, her snare didn't work, she's not "woman" enough—whatever that means. I suppose it's feminine, or just attractive in general.
I get that it's not a good idea to idealize women and put them on a moral pedastal , but I think here's an example of this testosteronized Peter Pan philosophy at play. Pook, who's against philosophizing, is congruent in that he lacks nuance, and rather leans on extreme and provoking bold statements. Which makes for an intriguing and exciting read—including for women. A woman I showed snippets of the Womanese section to told me, "I want to read this book just because I hate it so much." There's some wisdom that can be gained from the boldness and lack of nuance. On the flip side, it is a little frightening if people take what Pook is saying actually seriously—it's frightening that his intellect can come up with such thought-provoking justifications for actions of moral lack. Clearly the picture of casual sex and the harmful emotional effects are far more intricate than merely dusting it off saying "she wasn't woman enough."
Despite having a fairly healthy and conservative view on sex in some respects, Pook subscribes to old-school manospheric thought, probably inspired by the highly flawed book Sex at Dawn:
| Women will have sex left and right but the fear of 'slut' behavior stops them and frustrates them. In other words, women hate virtue and will despise purity. Thus, there are no true 'innocent' girls.
He also mentions that women are intrinsically without a moral compass and just behave according to the boundaries in society MEN create.
The irony is that even though Pook hates feminism, and even has the view that sexuality has been overly eroticized because of lack of sex roles, and even criticizes pick-up players for being "citizen dildos," as an unhealthy obsession with sex, he apparently sees no problem with women's inner nature desiring to have sex left and right, essentially being citizen vaginas. Clearly, he isn't advocating that all women are essentially repressed Bonnie Blues, but I think this view is a bit extreme nonetheless. Even I, a guy who's supposed to be biologically wired for variety, simply don't see its intrinsic value. Variety in what exactly? I feel sex is too emotionally tolling for that, especially for women.
I never properly understood the concept of the biological basis for intrinsic desire for endless variety—the sexual benefit of having sex with lots of varied girls/guys. This is what my criticism is of speed seduction. Why in the world do you want to have sex with a woman as fast as possible, only to move onto the next girl? Even if you are entirely in it for a warm hole, it is still an incredibly awful strategy for overall sex since you need to do the whole seduction every time you want to have sex instead of having a girlfriend who you can rely on.
People cry out to me: "BUT IT'S VARIETY." Variety of what, exactly? At one time you want small boobs, another large? At one point the woman wants big equipment, the other she wants small? One time you want a screamer and another you want to have sex in silence? Surely the variety in these things cannot make up for the cost of not having the same thing reliably. Are you really such a child you need variety?
The most ridiculous explanation is when they say men are evolved to seek variety to spread your genes. But mister! Are you actually spreading your genes? No? Then you are celebrating being a slave to your so-called instincts to which you are not even fulfilling. Is this living a self-actualized life? Is this actually empowering you? And for women, what's the biological basis for wanting to sleep left and right?
The only benefit of casual sex over, say, friends with benefits, is that you can avoid having adult conversations about what you want and have clear communication of expectations. The desire to avoid seeing someone multiple times is more rooted in poor communication skills than anything else.
What I really think is the basis for this variety is approval. You don't actually care about the different shaped bodies or the skin color, or spreading your genes—it's all a bunch of bullshit rationalization.
If it is not mere approval, then what is called variety is merely a desire for ambiguity, eroticism and mystery that fades away from one partner. We love to have sex with new women because there's still a challenge, there's uncertainty, there's mystery and novelty (she does different things), it's exploratory. But all of these things are surface-level psychological desires, not deep biological ones, and relying on different people for the novelty is a sign of pathology and suboptimal effort. In the case of extreme cases like Bonnie Blue, she's not fulfilling some repressed female desire to release her inner slut, but rather, she's motivated by money primarily.
I think his views on detachment and unneediness were influenced by the dogma of his time. His idea is that a man should not be eager to say let's be exclusive. Because once he stops seeing other girls, once he enters the "cage," his sense of abundance will fade and he'll become needy. There are two problems with this. I totally get that if you are feeling needy and insecure as a result of not getting constantly validated by other women, then you can screw up what otherwise had worked were you to refuse early commitment. But is this fate? In my experience, going all-in is sometimes the only way to truly know if something will work. Besides, the dogmatic strategy isn't thought through in the case of future commitments. If you don't learn how to feel confident despite not seeing different women all the time, your confidence will be on shaky grounds were you to eventually commit down the road.
He recommends either date MANY or NONE. Never one. He claims there is a pre-determined inevitable cycle where men turn into "AFCs" when they date only ONE. This isn't true and it reveals a lack of faith in what I call core confidence. He claims that when you see ONE woman, your brain thinks she's your wife and you will become obsessed with her. There's no evidence behind this, and if you can be fine with none, you can definitely be fine with one.
There's a conflict of voices warning against early sex. One shouts, "Your neurochemistry will be meddled up and you will see her through rose-tinted glasses, being unable to objectively assess your long-term compatibility!" Another voice shouts, "When men have sex with women their view of them decreases, they think of them as sluts and don't want them as long-term partners, they get tired of them quicker." WHICH ONE IS IT? Personally I think the truth is precisely in the middle—it makes no difference at all.
If a rookie fisherman has no fish, he will be nervous. If he has one, he will be obsessed. But if a master fisherman, confident he can catch fish, and his skills are only improving, he has no need to be nervous or obsessed in any case. So Pook is wrong—it doesn't matter if it's NONE or ONE, or MANY, so long as you are confident in yourself.
| For true passion with women can only come when the man can easily walk away.
Yes, when guys are needy, what they feel is not true passion, but clingy obsessiveness. Intense sexual emotion is at its highest when the man is in his eternal masculine core, when he doesn't need anything. Though at the same time, this doesn't mean there would be any emotional connection or attachment. Seems like the emphasis on "easily" might induce pathology—a celebration of lack of intimacy.
Apart from feminism, Pook's enemy #1 is the Nice Guy. His enemy #2 would probably be dinner dates. Pook has an amusing holy crusade against dinner dates—and well, talking, especially intellectual talk. And I can see where he's coming from. Instead of embracing the innocent childish instinct to just hang out and have fun together, we've been brought up to take courtship very seriously and follow a very strict routine with a lot of restrictions. Men and women are no longer hanging out like we did in kindergarten, but we are going on dinner dates, having our butts in the chairs in front of each other talking talking talking blah blah. Pook revolts against this (quite dramatically) and cries for ACTION DATES (caps unavoidable). He makes a good case against striving for "being perfect" and rather emphasizes "having fun."
Though I think he goes overboard with his date ideas. Going to museums, skating and even air balloon rides (yes, he did recommend this) is just simply unrealistic. I totally get that dinner dates are emblematic of what guys are doing wrong in dating, but I can't "stand behind" the notion that we cannot sit down while getting to know each other. There's something intimate and nice about sitting across from each other and I disagree 100% that we get to know each other by DOING things rather than TALKING. I believe having conversations is tons of fun, words can bring you on an adventure, and if you think conversations are boring then it's probably because you haven't seen their potential yet. Pook reveals this in himself when he refers to dinner dates as "watching the girl flap her gums." It requires some skill and finesse to bring conversations to really interesting topics, and I'd rather do that sometimes than just have snowball wars with her (which is great too).
One thing about the book I found contradictory and frankly confusing was the anti-intellectualism. Pook states girls are just attracted to testosteronized men with boyish charm, fair enough, but the constant trampling down on the intellect seems wrong. While he says girls are attracted to INTELLIGENT men, at the same time, they are not interested in his WORDS or PHILOSOPHIES.
In a word, I'd rather make the distinction between "DATES" and "HANGING OUT" rather than regular dates and "action dates." When you invite girls out, prefer to frame it as "hanging out," rather than "going on a date." Dates, for me, are a more romantic gesture which is fun to play with down the line. Dates are a "thing," and thus, they come with cultural baggage and expectations, which you can screw up, which is fun.
I read this book several years ago and Pook gave dating advice that certainly influenced my behavior, namely you should date yourself. The idea here is that when meeting women you go out doing things you would already do anyway. If it's dinners, go out for a dinner date alone occasionally. Shower, perfume, groom, and go out and eat. Make going out a habit. When it's time to meet women you just bring her along to the places you're already comfortable in.
To conclude, I think Pook was famous for his writing style, his insights and early leadership toward the movement toward "Natural Game." He claims he's massively successful with women and there's really not a lot of reason to doubt that. The book, again, is a compilation of posts written across many years, so the (albeit few) contradictions are understandable. There's a lot of value here, though some should be taken with a grain of salt.
I'll leave with a final quote:
| Sometimes, males see sex as a type of liberation from the sexual exile we are locked within as women are gatekeepers, and hold all the keys to this 'Promised Land.' Yet, the harder one tries to 'liberate' himself this way, the deeper Nature's claws dig in. Soon, one becomes the slave to Nature.
It is difficult to create a coherent book review of it since the topics have a large range and the only red thread across the posts is the emphasis on naturalness. The book is a fun read, really. What I really like is this engaging and life-like, and quite original writing style of sudden summoning and disappearance of various women, nice guys and historical figures to make his point. At one point he's trying to make his point and a "Mr. Nice Guy" is constantly trying to interrupt him. Very unique for a manosphere forum writer. And while it shouldn't be taken very seriously, as Pook is a bit wild, dramatic and uncareful, it should be digested as a whole to get an overall feel for a worldview, like poetry, not necessarily that every single point he's making is factually correct. Having said that, if someone specifically asks me about "Natural Game," I will recommend reading this, as well as RSD Tyler's Blueprint DVDs, as they lay out the concept perfectly.
What I like about Pook is how he is inspiring to become both physically jacked, but also to expand one's mind reading classical books. His talent and wide-reading of the classics is evident by his lively and cultured writing style, which is humorously combined with crude modern manospheric advice for men. Readers are inspired not only to hit the gym in his iconic transition of relating increasing bodyweight from 120 to 200 pounds to increasingly more access to beautiful women, but also to study Shakespeare. To be jacked, witty, cultured, and base attracting women on letting nature do its work, piercing women with lust in one's eye—that's something I definitely can stand behind. While I disagree with some old-school manosphere ideas, I can completely stand behind his core approach: focus on energy, testosterone, be a bad boy with a heart, an intellectual troublemaker, dangerous but sweet underneath, a little unpredictable and paradoxical.
Pook's overall view of sex is surprisingly conservative and says that it's put on a pedestal culturally, that our culture has desexualized men and women's roles in society, so what has happened is sexuality has become pushed into the bedroom, and the ultimate test of manhood is there, not in real life. This is an important point—society is becoming more androgynous (non-sexual), the roles of men and women are getting washed out, creating a culture of BDSM and too much focus on bedroom skills. As the definition of what makes a man in society in comparison to a woman blurs, what makes you a "man" these days is how many women you've laid, how much of a sex god you are with your techniques, etc. Pook argues against this and wants to separate "sexuality" from mere "sex." Ideally, sexuality should permeate our society healthily, but it's not, so it has become eroticized.
Like I mentioned earlier, Pook has a Rousseauian view of childhood. He says that we are naturally good with women. As children we were fearless, fun, we would talk to random girls in the sandbox no problem, and we were having fun throwing dirt at them. He says even the definition of charm is treating women as if they are little girls. If we could tap into this energy, girls would find us irresistible. However, society has corrupted us into Nice Guys, etc.
Though a caveat might be that the "letting go" is only useful at the point when you've grasped it. I think the ideal is not to return to a childlike state, but to transcend the intermediary state of being stuffed with ideas, rules and philosophies. It always invokes my curiosity when someone says, "Yeah I left that speed seduction, mystery method, Neil Strauss thing behind me and focus on being myself," and they mysteriously just so happen to meet beautiful women naturally. There's something about going through a tough period of becoming conscious of something, then letting go, that works. It is understandable that teachers realize they had to let go of their philosophy to transcend, and thus advise apprentices to just skip the conscious philosophy stage altogether. Pook did mention this:
| These guides and rules were a crutch for my lack of confidence. They do, however, work but are overall limited. The rules and guides are the training wheels, the helper out of the nest.
However, with the lack of emphasis and recommendation of training wheels, one has to assume that the reader is already at a certain phase.
In advocating against "wanting" a relationship, in a sort of bad-boy childlike fashion, relating relationships as cages, Pook writes:
| Women want the birds that are FREE, WILD and BEAUTIFUL. They want A GOOD CATCH. Good catches do not fly into cages. Only wounded or needy birds need cages.
The idea here rings true to my ears. More often than not, we just "end up" in a relationship exactly at the point when we don't want it, or have just forgotten all about it. At the precise moment you think, "Geesh, I actually don't want a relationship now," that's when the gods of love are conspiring against you.
But I think he takes it too far when he says, The guy marries because he is tired... so tired. He cannot stand being single and cannot endure the trials of life. Obviously, this isn't the case. Guys don't just give up on life when they get married; on the contrary, many are better able to concentrate their energies that way.
He also makes it crystal clear that it is the woman's role to want relationships, and men want sex. In the ethics of the sexual dynamics, men are completely free of any charge if they have sex with a woman but leave her. Pook writes:
| The girl sleeps with the jerk and he leaves her. We as guys think the abuse is the jerk sleeping with the girl merely to 'use' her (and motherly harpies try to feminize us into not doing 'this'). Rather, the 'abuse' is that the girl realizes she could not keep the guy. She was 'not woman enough.'
In other words, the bad feelings a woman feels when she's pumped and dumped are not because she's been morally wronged, but because she realizes her lack of feminine allure, her snare didn't work, she's not "woman" enough—whatever that means. I suppose it's feminine, or just attractive in general.
I get that it's not a good idea to idealize women and put them on a moral pedastal , but I think here's an example of this testosteronized Peter Pan philosophy at play. Pook, who's against philosophizing, is congruent in that he lacks nuance, and rather leans on extreme and provoking bold statements. Which makes for an intriguing and exciting read—including for women. A woman I showed snippets of the Womanese section to told me, "I want to read this book just because I hate it so much." There's some wisdom that can be gained from the boldness and lack of nuance. On the flip side, it is a little frightening if people take what Pook is saying actually seriously—it's frightening that his intellect can come up with such thought-provoking justifications for actions of moral lack. Clearly the picture of casual sex and the harmful emotional effects are far more intricate than merely dusting it off saying "she wasn't woman enough."
Despite having a fairly healthy and conservative view on sex in some respects, Pook subscribes to old-school manospheric thought, probably inspired by the highly flawed book Sex at Dawn:
| Women will have sex left and right but the fear of 'slut' behavior stops them and frustrates them. In other words, women hate virtue and will despise purity. Thus, there are no true 'innocent' girls.
He also mentions that women are intrinsically without a moral compass and just behave according to the boundaries in society MEN create.
The irony is that even though Pook hates feminism, and even has the view that sexuality has been overly eroticized because of lack of sex roles, and even criticizes pick-up players for being "citizen dildos," as an unhealthy obsession with sex, he apparently sees no problem with women's inner nature desiring to have sex left and right, essentially being citizen vaginas. Clearly, he isn't advocating that all women are essentially repressed Bonnie Blues, but I think this view is a bit extreme nonetheless. Even I, a guy who's supposed to be biologically wired for variety, simply don't see its intrinsic value. Variety in what exactly? I feel sex is too emotionally tolling for that, especially for women.
I never properly understood the concept of the biological basis for intrinsic desire for endless variety—the sexual benefit of having sex with lots of varied girls/guys. This is what my criticism is of speed seduction. Why in the world do you want to have sex with a woman as fast as possible, only to move onto the next girl? Even if you are entirely in it for a warm hole, it is still an incredibly awful strategy for overall sex since you need to do the whole seduction every time you want to have sex instead of having a girlfriend who you can rely on.
People cry out to me: "BUT IT'S VARIETY." Variety of what, exactly? At one time you want small boobs, another large? At one point the woman wants big equipment, the other she wants small? One time you want a screamer and another you want to have sex in silence? Surely the variety in these things cannot make up for the cost of not having the same thing reliably. Are you really such a child you need variety?
The most ridiculous explanation is when they say men are evolved to seek variety to spread your genes. But mister! Are you actually spreading your genes? No? Then you are celebrating being a slave to your so-called instincts to which you are not even fulfilling. Is this living a self-actualized life? Is this actually empowering you? And for women, what's the biological basis for wanting to sleep left and right?
The only benefit of casual sex over, say, friends with benefits, is that you can avoid having adult conversations about what you want and have clear communication of expectations. The desire to avoid seeing someone multiple times is more rooted in poor communication skills than anything else.
What I really think is the basis for this variety is approval. You don't actually care about the different shaped bodies or the skin color, or spreading your genes—it's all a bunch of bullshit rationalization.
If it is not mere approval, then what is called variety is merely a desire for ambiguity, eroticism and mystery that fades away from one partner. We love to have sex with new women because there's still a challenge, there's uncertainty, there's mystery and novelty (she does different things), it's exploratory. But all of these things are surface-level psychological desires, not deep biological ones, and relying on different people for the novelty is a sign of pathology and suboptimal effort. In the case of extreme cases like Bonnie Blue, she's not fulfilling some repressed female desire to release her inner slut, but rather, she's motivated by money primarily.
I think his views on detachment and unneediness were influenced by the dogma of his time. His idea is that a man should not be eager to say let's be exclusive. Because once he stops seeing other girls, once he enters the "cage," his sense of abundance will fade and he'll become needy. There are two problems with this. I totally get that if you are feeling needy and insecure as a result of not getting constantly validated by other women, then you can screw up what otherwise had worked were you to refuse early commitment. But is this fate? In my experience, going all-in is sometimes the only way to truly know if something will work. Besides, the dogmatic strategy isn't thought through in the case of future commitments. If you don't learn how to feel confident despite not seeing different women all the time, your confidence will be on shaky grounds were you to eventually commit down the road.
He recommends either date MANY or NONE. Never one. He claims there is a pre-determined inevitable cycle where men turn into "AFCs" when they date only ONE. This isn't true and it reveals a lack of faith in what I call core confidence. He claims that when you see ONE woman, your brain thinks she's your wife and you will become obsessed with her. There's no evidence behind this, and if you can be fine with none, you can definitely be fine with one.
There's a conflict of voices warning against early sex. One shouts, "Your neurochemistry will be meddled up and you will see her through rose-tinted glasses, being unable to objectively assess your long-term compatibility!" Another voice shouts, "When men have sex with women their view of them decreases, they think of them as sluts and don't want them as long-term partners, they get tired of them quicker." WHICH ONE IS IT? Personally I think the truth is precisely in the middle—it makes no difference at all.
If a rookie fisherman has no fish, he will be nervous. If he has one, he will be obsessed. But if a master fisherman, confident he can catch fish, and his skills are only improving, he has no need to be nervous or obsessed in any case. So Pook is wrong—it doesn't matter if it's NONE or ONE, or MANY, so long as you are confident in yourself.
| For true passion with women can only come when the man can easily walk away.
Yes, when guys are needy, what they feel is not true passion, but clingy obsessiveness. Intense sexual emotion is at its highest when the man is in his eternal masculine core, when he doesn't need anything. Though at the same time, this doesn't mean there would be any emotional connection or attachment. Seems like the emphasis on "easily" might induce pathology—a celebration of lack of intimacy.
Apart from feminism, Pook's enemy #1 is the Nice Guy. His enemy #2 would probably be dinner dates. Pook has an amusing holy crusade against dinner dates—and well, talking, especially intellectual talk. And I can see where he's coming from. Instead of embracing the innocent childish instinct to just hang out and have fun together, we've been brought up to take courtship very seriously and follow a very strict routine with a lot of restrictions. Men and women are no longer hanging out like we did in kindergarten, but we are going on dinner dates, having our butts in the chairs in front of each other talking talking talking blah blah. Pook revolts against this (quite dramatically) and cries for ACTION DATES (caps unavoidable). He makes a good case against striving for "being perfect" and rather emphasizes "having fun."
Though I think he goes overboard with his date ideas. Going to museums, skating and even air balloon rides (yes, he did recommend this) is just simply unrealistic. I totally get that dinner dates are emblematic of what guys are doing wrong in dating, but I can't "stand behind" the notion that we cannot sit down while getting to know each other. There's something intimate and nice about sitting across from each other and I disagree 100% that we get to know each other by DOING things rather than TALKING. I believe having conversations is tons of fun, words can bring you on an adventure, and if you think conversations are boring then it's probably because you haven't seen their potential yet. Pook reveals this in himself when he refers to dinner dates as "watching the girl flap her gums." It requires some skill and finesse to bring conversations to really interesting topics, and I'd rather do that sometimes than just have snowball wars with her (which is great too).
One thing about the book I found contradictory and frankly confusing was the anti-intellectualism. Pook states girls are just attracted to testosteronized men with boyish charm, fair enough, but the constant trampling down on the intellect seems wrong. While he says girls are attracted to INTELLIGENT men, at the same time, they are not interested in his WORDS or PHILOSOPHIES.
In a word, I'd rather make the distinction between "DATES" and "HANGING OUT" rather than regular dates and "action dates." When you invite girls out, prefer to frame it as "hanging out," rather than "going on a date." Dates, for me, are a more romantic gesture which is fun to play with down the line. Dates are a "thing," and thus, they come with cultural baggage and expectations, which you can screw up, which is fun.
I read this book several years ago and Pook gave dating advice that certainly influenced my behavior, namely you should date yourself. The idea here is that when meeting women you go out doing things you would already do anyway. If it's dinners, go out for a dinner date alone occasionally. Shower, perfume, groom, and go out and eat. Make going out a habit. When it's time to meet women you just bring her along to the places you're already comfortable in.
To conclude, I think Pook was famous for his writing style, his insights and early leadership toward the movement toward "Natural Game." He claims he's massively successful with women and there's really not a lot of reason to doubt that. The book, again, is a compilation of posts written across many years, so the (albeit few) contradictions are understandable. There's a lot of value here, though some should be taken with a grain of salt.
I'll leave with a final quote:
| Sometimes, males see sex as a type of liberation from the sexual exile we are locked within as women are gatekeepers, and hold all the keys to this 'Promised Land.' Yet, the harder one tries to 'liberate' himself this way, the deeper Nature's claws dig in. Soon, one becomes the slave to Nature.
June 26, 2022
Quite a red-pill content, although a mixture of some really sound advice and lots of platitudes ! has some essential ideas you can find from Models or Dating essentials from Dr Grover an average read.
March 8, 2020
Just isn't grabbing me. Didn't much like his style, and I've see most of this material before, not all of it from the "manosphere." Pook is essentially taking a "work on yourself" approach. Kind of like what Rohn or Robbins would say.
November 23, 2017
I cant stop raving about this book and "Pook" obviously. Although this isn't really technically a book but a collection of a forum posting. Having read a lot of other RP books, this book was a great treat. This is one book that will open the floodgates of self improvement if you accept issues in your life and seeks actively to correct them. "Pook" goes over them one by one and tries to help you out as a friend and a mentor.
I can't stop raving about the book and "Pook", I'm pretty sure this is for a very selective audience and doesn't appeal to the mass crowd. I'll read these again and will recommend the book to any of my friends who are open to self improvement.
I can't stop raving about the book and "Pook", I'm pretty sure this is for a very selective audience and doesn't appeal to the mass crowd. I'll read these again and will recommend the book to any of my friends who are open to self improvement.
June 14, 2018
Me in 2003: Wow! This Pook guy is so good at charming women!
Me in 2018: Wow! This Pook guy is so good at charming men who want to charm women!
He has some good ideas about self-care and self respect, etc. Too bad he ends up marrying it with anti-feminism, fear of women, and ignorance about gender and sex.
He began with a quest for self improvement, and became more and more obsessed with delusions of male persecution, until eventually he became very bitter with women and decided to avoid relationships with them.
Me in 2018: Wow! This Pook guy is so good at charming men who want to charm women!
He has some good ideas about self-care and self respect, etc. Too bad he ends up marrying it with anti-feminism, fear of women, and ignorance about gender and sex.
He began with a quest for self improvement, and became more and more obsessed with delusions of male persecution, until eventually he became very bitter with women and decided to avoid relationships with them.
January 23, 2016
I have read this book over and over again, and every time, I have learned something. It has taught me things that are more than just "how to get girls". It is hard, in this day and age, to really know what it means to "be a man". Pook answers those questions. To be continuously striving forward, to go past the manuals and instructions and create your own life, that is what he advocates. I don't agree with everything he says, but many of his words resonate with me.
October 19, 2019
What are you expecting here? A long-winded diatribe on the virtues of strong masculinity in an increasingly decadent and feminine society? If The Book of Pook taught me anything, it's that bookish exercises in philosophy frequently lead to feeble stasis, and almost never to life's sweeping heights. Your time is better spent building, creating, and pursuing YOUR passions! So get off your butt young man, stop reading this review and go create your own world!
Want to read
August 23, 2020So this guy sends me a friend request. I look at his shelves. I don't accept every friend request.
One of his shelves is called Red Pill.
On this shelf is this book.
I will not read this book. I certainly will not willingly add a "friend" who has read and rated a book with tips on how to be a sexual predator and manipulate women into having sex. Hard pass.
One of his shelves is called Red Pill.
On this shelf is this book.
I will not read this book. I certainly will not willingly add a "friend" who has read and rated a book with tips on how to be a sexual predator and manipulate women into having sex. Hard pass.
June 16, 2016
A fun read with matters going into self reflection and good mental health. It goes on a bit and you can tell it's an evolution of blog posts. It contains some pertinent points that I've found good for my well being.
May 20, 2018
Сборник с постовете на някакъв "експерт" от форум за сваляне на жени. Литературният му стил е толкова изнервящ, че и малкото истини, които казва се губят в глупавия начин, по който пише. Също така, отново много малко практични съвети и много общи приказки.
June 20, 2018
One of the most essential books for the modern man to read. Please do not be turned away by the lack of ratings on goodreads, this extremely female dominated site. This is one of the most important texts you can get your hands on as a man, period.
November 22, 2012
Excellently crucial.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 91 reviews